If you have read earlier entries on this blog about the Flamingos' 1953 doo wop classic Golden Teardrops then you may be interested in ...

This is to alert readers that Neil McKay's A City Called Glory, the play about Sam Cooke which I've discussed in earlier posts, has...

Just found the Ravens' 1955 recording of On Chapel Hill on youtube and had to include it here: like the Del-Vikings' Wilette, i...

Thinking about Lou Johnson and Burt Bacharach in the previous post leads inevitably to thoughts of Chuck Jackson , another great Africa...

Here's another much-needed CD compilation - and this time it's Ace Records, so no worries about sound quality. Lou Johnson'...

Having quoted from Robert Cushman's description of Hutch in the previous entry, now seems a good point to paste in a review prepared ear...

It's no reflection on the late Benny Green that it's harder for me to recall the specific songs he played on his Sunday lunchtime...

Aaccidentally came across this unique Flamingos compilation on the UK-based Jasmine label when shopping at HMV in central London yesterday....

I mentioned Joe Venuti's sublime recording of Tea for Two in the entry about Hubert Gregg. I have now found out a little more about it ...

Rather than disfiguring the previous post with audio clips, here they are instead. While it may be fitting that only a limited amount of the...

Why, during a period of transition and possibility in my life, I should have been so drawn to a radio show featuring fifty-year-old record...

Listening to Ian Whitcomb's show (see previous post) reminds me that, important as my local library may have been in encouragin...

I quoted from Ian Whitcomb's amusing and touching essay Bill Haley's 1957 Hellbound Train to Waterloo, about the rock'n'rol...

As a footnote to the posts about Stand By Me, two youtube clips with a bearing on my comments about seeing Ben E King with the Drifters in ...

As promised, both sides of the rock'n'roll-anticipating 78 found in my grandfather's attic in the early seventies and presumabl...

Daniel Wolff's liner notes for the Sam Cooke Complete Specialty Recordings set, mentioned earlier in connection with his biography of C...

I'll return to the subject of Stand By Me (last two posts) with an additional entry of related links or by revising those posts...

I can't remember when I first heard Stand By Me. It may even have been the Lennon reworking, as my earliest definite memory is of danci...

By the mid to late 50s, artists like Ray Charles and Sam Cooke were beginning to realise there was a lot to learn from the stripped down l...

Before drifting away to other matters I'd like to talk about another of Ralph McTell's songs, Barges, which must have featured on t...

Since completing the previous post about Jake Thackray I have made three attempts at new subjects, but the Thackray-related topic which ...

I was sorry to hear of Jake Thackray's death; I remember fondly, albeit dimly, early appearances on the Sunday afternoon children...

I stuck with the Donovan concert to the end (see previous post), although I wish I'd been aware of it when it was actually going out. T...

I feel guilty framing the title for this entry but it has to be faced. Yes, that Donovan - is there another? Donovan the minstrel whose Fa...

Donovan exploded. "Don't call me Don!" With his recording career a failure, Ringo made one last bold move: he cut of...

I talked in one of the Doo Wop Dialog[ue] posts about the popularity of country music in the West of Scotland, as evinced by Glasgow havi...